Accidental Discharge of Gun...

After reading some stories on this forum about guns accidentally discharging, it got me thinking. How many have had this happen? Sometimes it's due to stupidity, sometimes gun malfunction. I'm sure no one on this forum has had it happen due to stupidity but...have you ever had an accidental discharge of a firearm?

My story:

I was at a friend's house about 15 years ago. He took his pistol out in his yard and was showing his sister-in-law the gun while they were sitting in the grass. He "unloaded" the gun and then, as she sat wide-eyed with curiosity, he pointed the gun at their feet, pulled the trigger and BOOM! Missed her foot by an inch. That was my most memorable lesson in gun safety and I have never forgotten it.

There really aren't any "accidental" gun discharges, baring then gun mechanically failing without human intervention, which rarely occurs. They are almost exclusively due to negligence. It's a bit of semantics, but the term negligence paints a more realistic image on what happened.

There have been a few people on the forum that did something stupid, and as a result, had a negligent discharge. Luckily, to my knowledge, no one has been hurt beyond a bit of self-image and hearing loss.

It's like anything in life, sometimes you just do something stupid. You live and learn, and no one is perfect. So long as you maintain the gun in a safe direction, know whats beyond the target, etc. you will mitigate any damage.

Nothing of the sort as of yet...and I hope I never will. However, smarter people than me who have spent their whole lives around firearms have, so I continually try to remind myself how "easy" it really is to make a mistake. I try to keep myself paranoid in that respect in hopes that I don't end up with a "stupid moment" as JKTex put it. All it takes is one bad moment to ruin your (or someone else's) life. I guess that's why there's the Golden rule "Always treat a firearm as though it's loaded even if you know it's not."

smarter people than me who have spent their whole lives around firearms have

+1
it's always in the back of my mind because of this. Family members have holes in gunrooms and floorboards, and my uncle wonders why I went apeshit when he pointed it at one of my dogs and pulled the trigger. Hell, I've actually had a friend killed under the aforementioned conditions "Is it loaded?" "No, watch." It's negligence, pure and simple, None of my guns have a safety because they're always loaded! Even when they're not.

http://www.txcdl.org
"For among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised" - Niccolo Machiavelli

Many, MANY years ago (I was about age 13) I was headin' out into the pasture to bird hunt. Was loading the shotgun, and racked the slide to chamber a round. I was between the barn and another outbuilding - cows in one, chickens in the other.....

Anyway - I was just starting to rack when something said "up!!!!" - glancing up, I noticed I was under the rain cover, so I pointed the barrel downrange....BANG! Pulling my undies outta the crack, I headed back to the house to find Dad. I didn't TOUCH the slide - left it just where it was, because while I wasn't sure WHAT had happened, I knew I didn't want it to happen again!

Turns out that for some reason, the firing pin had jammed, so the second that sucker got close to being in battery, it fired.

The only AD I had was when I caught the loaded gun and it went kaboom in the house and I was deaf and I was scared and I will never catch a loaded gun again if it falls it will just have to hit the ground. That is as in detail as I can get right now. I'll try and make a link with the old Oops thread.

"Scars remind us where we've been, but they don't have to dictate where we're going."-Criminal Minds

I've had two negligent discharges: Both with a .22, at the range, with no injury or property damage. The first was about 15 years ago, with a small piece of junk that wasn't feeding well and making me impatient. The second was about two years ago, with a nose-heavy long barreled (silhouette) Buckmark. Both rounds went downrange, but wide of the target.

Yes, I had my finger on the trigger before I should have, both times; but I was observing the other three rules. No excuse!!

During a CMP Hi-Power rifle match....
rules state that during the slow fire relay, you must load one round at a time. I was prone, manually inserted a round and closed the bolt on my AR15. BANG! I saw the dirt fly about 20 yards in front of me. Muzzle was of course pointed downrange. I must have had a high primer. Still, it gave me reason to pause and be grateful that I had been safe in my muzzle direction before closing the bolt.